ROCK ART

The province of Castellón features a unique concentration of rock art locations in the Mediterranean basin.

The shelters, where those extraordinary artworks can be found, are integrated in places featuring spectacular landscapes, located from the mountain range of the coastline to the inner mountain area.

Those artistic representations are a vivid testimony of the prehistoric communities that inhabited in these lands. The main part of them fit within the so-called Levantine RockArt whose technical and stylistic characteristics make it unique. In 1998 they were inscribed on Unesco World Heritage list. In 2015, the Rock Art of the Iberian Iberian Peninsula as a Place of Exceptional Universal Value, the highest step to which an asset that has previously been declared a World Heritage Site can aspire.

In the area of Castellón the scenes of hunting or battles are particularly abundant and amazing.

The Levantine Rock Art

The Levantine Rock Art is a testimony of the crucial stage of development the human being lived by means of paintings, which are unique on their kind for their style and basic themes. The numerous locations spread out along the eastern half of the Mediterranean coastline of the Peninsula end up forming an ensemble of outstanding importance, becoming the main concentration of Rock Art in Europe.

If we consider them an ensemble, small and hardly noticeable local variations can be distinguished. For instance, in the area of Castellón, scenes of hunting or battle made up of humans are particularly abundant and amazing.

The paintings are usually found in shallow shelters at open air on the front walls or on the ceilings. The figures are usually simple silhouettes, sketched with lines that may be extraordinarily thin and various types of fillings for the interior of the figures. The predominant colours are red, black and, to a lesser extent, white.

What is truly extraordinary in those representations is their dynamism, scenes full of life with human and animal ensembles. These scenes can be considered the first narrations in European Prehistory, and provide us with very important information on the activities, habits and way of life at that time: individual or group tasks, scenes of tracking, chasing and hunting animals. Confrontations between rival groups, gathering, bee-keeping, etc.

Some of the most important enclaves with rock art in Castellón were included in the 4D VULL · Rock Art projects with the aim of diagnosing and monitoring their state of conservation. The use in these projects of the most advanced technological means has allowed to generate digital products destined to generate a unique informative experience. Its link with the website "Castellón Arqueológico" is done in a disinterested way in order to contribute to the dissemination of this exceptional heritage.